This invention relates to a cooling element for a metallurgical furnace.
More particularly, but not exclusively, the invention relates to a cooling element for a blast furnace.
Cooling elements of various types are installed in the walls of metallurgical furnaces in order to protect the furnace walls against the deleterious influence of the heat which develops in the furnace. In recent years a type of cooling element has become more and more accepted which is known as a plate cooler or "stave cooler". A cooling element of this type has a cast iron body in which steel pipes are embedded through which the cooling medium--usually water, water vapor or a mixture of water and water vapor--is made to flow. At the major surface of the cooling element which faces the interior of the furnace the body is provided with recesses into which refractory material is inserted, for example by casting it in place or by bonding or otherwise securing it in place. This is known from German Gebrauchsmuster No. 7,331,936 and from German Pat. No. 1,925,478.
The individual cooling tubes or pipes of a cooling element are connected in known per se manner with the cooling pipes of adjacent cooling elements in such a manner that the pipe inlet connection of one cooling element and the pipe outlet connection of an adjacent cooling element are extended outwardly through the furnace wall or the furnace armor and they are connected with one another within an elbow. This connection of the cooling elements outside the furnace was heretofor considered necessary, just as it was considered necessary that adjacent cooling elements should abut one another bluntly. However, as a result of these measures there develop uncooled areas which are located in a plane immediately adjacent one another, i.e. areas in which the removal of heat due to cooling is difficult or impossible. As a result of this, further, a destruction of the cast body has been observed in the area of the junctures with adjacent bodies, particularly in the area of the horizontal junctures or adjacent cooling elements. Depending upon the extent of such damage repairs are required which often can be carried out only after the furnace is shut down. This is quite evidently a very important disadvantage.